Wednesday, 25 September 2013

An afternoon for Korea

By New Worker correspondent

FRIENDS of the Korean revolution
returned to the historic Lucas Arms in north London on Saturday for a further
celebration of the foundation of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
Academics and school students joined Korean solidarity workers to take part in
the meeting called by the British Juché Idea Study Group at the Kings Cross pub,
which has been a working class venue for many years and was the place where the
Committee to Defeat Revisionism for Communist Unity was founded to challenge
the leadership of the old Communist Party of Great Britain in 1963.

Dermot Hudson opened the meeting by saying
that the 65th anniversary of the DPRK was proudly celebrated by the
successful Worker-Peasant Red Guard parade in the DPRK on September. He also
paid tribute to Madame Kim Jong Suk the mother of Korea who passed away 64
years ago on the 22nd September.

Shaun Pickford, the secretary
general of the group, was unable to travel into London as his father is gravely
ill. But he sent a paper that stressed the remarkable achievements of
Democratic Korea over the past 65 years, including free medical care, free
housing, no taxation and other benefits of the DPRK's social system. In the
DPRK there is the tradition of collectivism throughout society, the spirit of
single-hearted unity.

Dermot then
followed with a contribution on the Juché and Songun politics that had
transformed the DPR Korea into a modern socialist republic. And this was taken
up Dr Hugh Goodacre, a senior lecturer in economics who explained the deep
significance of anniversary of the foundation within the context of the Juché
Idea. He said that in the DPRK the people are the masters of the state.The great leader President Kim Il Sung was a
great man of the people, Hugh said, who mixed with workers and farmers and even
shook the ink-stained hands of academics!

Dr Goodacre, who
is an accomplished linguist, demonstrated his talents by singing the national
anthem of the DPRK in Korean to the applause of the audience and the meeting
ended in informal discussion and a buffet.